Fans Upset Over Caitlin Clark's Resurfaced NCAA Award 'Robbery' vs Paige Bueckers
Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers have arguably been the two best players in women's college basketball since 2021.
Of course, Clark is now playing for the Indiana Fever in the WNBA while Bueckers is still with the UConn Huskies. But the two are the same age and both entered the NCAA before the 2020-21 season.
Both women also set the basketball world ablaze as freshmen. In her first season at Iowa, Clark averaged 26.6 points per game (while shooting 40.6% from three-point range) and also amassed 7.1 assists per game.
Bueckers, on the other hand, averaged 20 points (with a superior 46.4% from three-point range) while also adding 5.8 assists and 4.9 rebounds per game.
Clark's Hawkeyes team and Bueckers' Huskies squad matched up in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2021 NCAA Tournament. UConn ultimately defeated Iowa by a score of 92-72, thus ending Iowa's season. Clark scored 21 points in the loss while Bueckers added 18 points.
UConn ended up losing in the Final Four of that tournament. However, that didn't keep Bueckers from securing some impressive hardware after the season — which is now causing controversy on social media over three years later.
A graphic showing Clark and Bueckers' stats in that 2020-21 season (before the NCAA Tournament) that's headlined with 'Freshman of the Year Candidates' has resurfaced on X.
The post's caption is "Should be an easy vote" .
Should be an easy vote pic.twitter.com/7D7Y3FApwo
— Mr. SOUNDOFF (@johnsears) March 4, 2021
Clark and Bueckers ended up sharing the National Freshman of the Year Award that year.
Bueckers, however, won the Naismith Trophy (which is given to the best player in women's college basketball each season) over Clark (and was the first freshman in NCAA history to secure the award).
And fans still think Clark was robbed of the award.
"They really did CC dirty her Rookie year. And it's not just this award. Do you even realize how good Caitlin was for her to share this award with Paige and it still be considered one of the biggest robberies in sports? 😭😂," one X user wrote on Sunday.
They really did CC dirty her Rookie year. And it's not just this award. Do you even realize how good Caitlin was for her to share this award with Paige and it still be considered one of the biggest robberies in sports? 😭😂 https://t.co/n6jtdPs3ZJ
— Assassin 🥷🏾 (@No1WBBfan) November 10, 2024
"My God that Uconn tax is insane bro and people still use this award to justify why they say Paige is better than Caitlin as if it wasn’t highway robbery like they pulled up with a RPG and took that s***," another fan added.
A third added, "Is this the same freshman year that they said she had better stats than CC??"
Is this the same freshman year that they said she had better stats than CC?? https://t.co/qdIBw5pPQO
— 𝒞.𝒩𝑀🧚🏿♀️💗• 𝒞𝒞’𝟤𝟤🧚🏿♀️💗•𝒜𝒰🧚🏿♀️💗 (@mspettynm) November 10, 2024
Clark ultimately got the last laugh when her Hawkeyes team knocked Bueckers' UConn squad out in the Final Four of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Not to mention that Clark finished her NCAA career with two consecutive Naismith Trophy awards.
Soon enough, these two will be matching up much more in the WNBA.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.